Synopsis

In the decade since the world became aware of the existence of magic, the world has undergone massive upheaval. However, a boy named Touta lives in seclusion in a rural town far removed from these changes. His ordinary life is highlighted by his magic-using female teacher and his supportive friends. When his tranquil daily life is disrupted, he embarks on a unique adventure.

From what I can presume, UQ Holder is some sort of sequel to Negima, that ridiculous ecchi harem manga with lots of distasteful stripping and panty shots and all kinds of fanservice. Which made me avoid it even until now, because I couldn't stand supposedly great manga that can't help but ruin their stories with terrible ecchi.

Couple of weeks ago, I discovered UQ Holder, recommended to me (didn't know about that whole Negima relation thing for a time). It was pretty nice. I would rate it an 8/10 a couple of days ago. A tale of dreams, adventure, and friendship. A standard shounen and a
pretty entertaining one at that. There were a few times of fanservice but it has even less than other standard shounens.

A few times there would be a couple of references to Negima which, while I couldn't relate to, I could tolerate because the story was fine even if you didn't read it.

Then when the manga was nearing the hundredth chapter, the author decided to just ruin all of that greatness and bring Negima to ruin this one. Before, there was practically no harem; only one, maybe two characters were being teased with the main character but just barely and not that much.

But no, suddenly, the author simply decides to take pretty much almost all of the female cast and make them suddenly attracted to him even when they showed little to zero feelings for him before, then give the readers a couple of characters who people have no attachment to because they weren't (or barely) in the story before and shove him into the shoddily made harem too just for the hell of it.

Oh, and made sure to have a lot of fanservice and nudity; I can tolerate some from time to time in other manga, but it becomes ridiculous when you get a reunion with this character in the early chapters and make her run around fully naked, and extremely ridiculous where characters are going around and fighting each other or their enemies while fully naked like the author doesn't care anymore. This kinds of situations are what triggers me when I read manga; this is the reason I dropped Fairy Tail and Tokyo ESP, seriously, which were both otherwise great shounen manga before they decided to go ridiculous with nudity and fanservice.

Well, aside from the forced sudden harem and the sudden surge of ridiculous fanservice, they also decide to bring Negima into the story by simply just shoving a lot of Negima characters into the story. Characters who only people who read the original manga will appreciate, leaving those who read this manga first in the dust. They simply keep introducing character after character who apparently is in the original series.

I read a couple of reviews for this manga that were submitted a few years ago, oh, and how wrong those people were. "This is not Negima 2.0", "This is an almost completely different manga". That was the case back then and I enjoyed it until we reach around a hundred chapters when the author decided to Negima-fy the manga. That would be a good thing for those who liked the original series, but not those who grew to love the normal and enjoyable adventure shounen that was UQ Holder.

This would have been a pretty high score before the storywreck a hundred chapters into the manga, so I'd simply just average it out and give it a 5. I'd probably still continue reading it because I have grew attached to a couple of characters to drop it at this point. But if you're someone who is interested in this manga and doesn't want fanservice, you probably shouldn't bother. You'd grow attached to the story and the main cast but the author will decide to ruin it a hundred chapters after. Likewise, if you're someone who wants hardcore fanservice shoved into an action shounen, you'd only get to have that a hundred chapters after because the manga barely had any of that beforehand.

"OH MY GOD MAHOU SENSEI NEGIMA 2, WOOOOOT!" was my reaction but It's not entirely true, this tale is new and takes a different approach from Akamatsu-sensei's previous stories. One obvious thing, it's not a harem. Sorry to break your hearts for fellow harem-lovers...but it's still good, it has something, potential.

Now when something has potential it's either bad or ok and has a chance to become great but this series will be great, least from what I see. So let's begin the review before I trail off into another rant.

Story: 7 - This tale takes place in the Negima universe. That being said, you
don't have to read Negima though you should, right? ANYWAY, Touta our main character is a rambunctious kid who wants to go places and follow many dreams with his friends, mainly the Capital, in a turn of events Touta becomes an immortal. So because of that he journeys on with Yukihime (Evangeline to us Negima readers) who takes him to UQ Holder a place filled with immortal free lancers. Touta joins to make even more friends and follow his dreams, all of them.

Art: 10 - Art, OUATANDING! Nothing less from Akamatsu-sensei. The characters and scenes are just drawn perfectly. The characters designs themselves are pretty unique but also familiar as well. The backgrounds (mainly in full page layouts) are Akamatsu-sensei's best work yet. I always enjoy Akamatsu-sensei's art, even inspired by it.

Characters : 8 - I want to give characters a higher rating and maybe I will, so far the most interesting of the bunch is Kuromaru. Our main character also is pretty interesting though the development isn't all the way there you can see what type of character, Touta, will be. You also have your Tsudere, Karin who's tagging along in the adventures as well. As many characters that will be added and even some appearances Akamatsu-sensei has a lot to work with and I honestly can't wait.

Enjoyment: 10 - I'm enjoying this manga well, every time I see the new chapter released I smile awaiting to read. This manga will make you anticipated for those releases time after time, because it's interesting and it's different from what you're use to seeing and reading. Again the potential is high and it's quiet enjoyable with it's comic relief and plot. Hopefully UQ Holder will break apart as a series entirely on it's own and not Negima 2.

This manga is one of the best I've read. The fact that Ken Akamatsu has made another great manga doesn't surprise me. I was sad when I read the last chapter of Negima, it left a empty hole in my heart. I cried silently when I finished it in a public place then when I got home I cried for literally 20 minutes, going back and forth to get tissues. When I heard of UQ Holder, that empty hole was once filled again. The fact that UQ Holder has more characters, returning characters, and it continues the story of Mahou Sensei Negima just makes me
want to give Ken a big, giant hug! I would HIGHLY recommend picking up UQ Holder right now. You will never get sick of the weird jokes that always come up. I absolutely loved Mahou Sensei Negima, now I absolutely love UQ Holder. Good job Ken Akamatsu. You just took 100+ dollars out of my pocket once again.

Note: For the people that say this isn't a harem like Negima, true, the harem element is not as prevalent in UQ Holder as it was in Negima, but there definitely is still a harem in this manga. I can't tell you who likes Touta but I can tell you that he certainly gains a lot of... "followers."

I dont usually read manga so when a friend recommended uq holder, i was very hesitant to read it. But when I did read it, I regretted not reading this earlier.

The review is based on the first two arcs of the story, untill chapter 30.

STORY-8

Similar to fairy tail, uq holder is an organisation that helps those in need in exchange for money. I like such a plot because it can give a variety of different arcs; darker, sinister ones and light funny ones.However, uq holder also has a lot of unanswered questions such as Totua's parents death. Even though it apparently seems that the
died in an accident, it seems highly suspicious to me.
The reason that I have not given the story any higher marks is because after the amazing first chapter, the story gradually became quite boring. But I kept on reading and after Chapter 10, I again gained interest in it.
I am certain that the story will become better over time so.

ART-9

I cannot describe the art very nicely. For me it was very good. None of the characters have same type of faces with different hair (though some character's chins are very similar). The Fight scenes are wonderfully drawn and people can actually understand what is happening during the battle.

Character-8

the manga has many varieties of personalities. Their backgrounds are slowly being uncovered. However since this manga is still young, not much can be said about the characters...only time will tell how those characters evolve.

Enjoyment-8

As i said before through Chapter 5-10 the manga was becoming very boring for me, but I did not leave it because those long dialogues were important for the development story.Anyway it redeemed itself with an enjoyable next arc.